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The Disappearance of Saturday Morning
Ant writes "Saturday morning no longer means kids in front of TV sets across the country, glued to the latest in hip cartoons. Why? Gerard Raiti investigates the death of an era." As a former Saturday morning TV addict, this doesn't seem like a bad thing to me.
I never slept in on Saturday mornings and they were the best thing on TV from 9am-12pm. I recently checked that time slot on the channels I used to watch and there was very little kid-oriented in this time slot. It used to be kids Saturday morning and Christian Evangelists on Sunday morning... so at least one of the two days was ok.
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Forget Saturday morning, what has bugged be for a long time is the disappearance of the classic Chuck Jones-style cartoons...
When was the last entertaining Bugs Bunny cartoon made? Around 1960 or so?
I can't help but wonder what happened. Sure, anime is good and all, but not as a replacement for classic cartoons. Why did it die out? They were infinitely more entertaining than anything recent. Did some Texans raise a stink about Yosemitie Sam, and PETA about talking animals being shot at all the time?
Come on... What happened?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The article lists "poor animation" as one of six reasons that kids are watching less cartoons, but in my opinion it's more basic than that. They suck. Several years ago the producers started concentrating more on marketing toys than entertaining the kids and when less kids watched (and bought toys) they just increased the marketing until they left out the fun. Several years ago I tried to watch some cartoons with my kids. Except for the classics like Road Runner and Johnny Quest they suck.
My little brother loves Sat. mornings he always wakes up at some un-godly hour (7:00am!?!) to watch Kids WB and FOX - Yu-Gi-Oh, Jackie Chan, Pokemon...
From Article:
My parents are divorced and my brother still loves to watch TV from 7:00 to Noon. I think the "death" of Sat. Morning Cartoons is due to the 24 hour cartoon stations, not divorce and TiVo. As I was growing up I did not have Cartoon Network, Disney and Nickelodeon. The programming for kids was only on Saturday Mornings and for 1-2 hours after I got home from school. So if I wanted to see the only kids shows I would have to have watched on Sat Morning.
> I fought with my sister over whether to watch Garfield and Friends or Teenage Mutant
> Ninja Turtles.
The Saturday-morning cartoons I most easily remember from when I was a kid are *The Smurfs* and those public service type edu-toons the stations were required to run, like the *Schoolhouse Rock* cartoons, as well as the musical advertisements from cheese manufacturers' or beef industry associations...
I also recall that my favorite Saturday-morning show wasn't a cartoon, but rather some show in which a bearded guy would tell stories to a room full of kids. Just like story time in elementary school, only on TV. He'd tell some really gruesome kids' stories though, like the one in which a man fights with some sort of man-beast and cuts a chunk out of its flesh during the fight, and takes it home and cooks it up to serve for his family...
A few years later the arrival of *Saved By the Bell* started to change the landscape of Saturday-morning kids' TV, turning it into a time for kids' versions of sitcoms and other live-character shows instead of so many cartoons. Mmmmm, the crush I had on those *Saved By the Bell* gals when I was a kid...
BTW, for anyone who doesn't know, the classic *Schoolhouse Rock* series is available on a special-edition DVD these days. Great nostalgia.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
I think a lot of posters are missing out on something here. Cartoon Network isn't doing something astoundingly new by having cartoons on all day. Kid's oriented programming was around most of the time back in the 80s as well. Saturday mornings were still important though. I wanted to watch the new season and scoped out the various shows to find out what was good and worth my time and what wasn't. I watched almost every week despite Nickelodeon and afternoon cartoons (duh... He-man was a weekday cartoon, not a saturday one). Even as I got older I would watch X-Men and Spider-man and such while I was in middle school before it eventually got canceled.
We had Nickelodeon, we had Nintendo almost everything that exists now existed back then. The only real difference is the complete lack of cartoons (and the lack of major action figure lines as well... do kids not play with them anymore? What's the deal?!?). I think it's the networks trying to save money by not putting into shows that they state don't make a great deal of money. They ignored the cartoon departments and now they've just more of less given up on it and blamed cable as the reason.
I think a fair comparison would be a local theater. They got rid of student and military discounts a few years back in a small town (Manhattan, KS) that exists mainly due to Kansas State and nearby Ft. Riley. They jacked up adult prices at the same time. The cited reason for the lack of discounts was that dollar theaters covered this market. Ignoring that the same company then bought and quickly closed the only dollar theater in town they cite something vaguely related that doesn't compare (I want to see a first-run film, not something that I didn't want to see or already saw four months ago) as an excuse to make more money.
When I was a kid the idea of a child being able to use a computer was so hard to believe people would suffer shock and denial when presented with proof of the exsistence of a 9 year old programmer.
The idea of BBSes and online shopping was such an amazing thing people couldn't believe it.
When Byte ran an artical about how computers would replace TVs eventually people were sceptical. The pet rock of the 80s or so they belived.
For kids today computers have already replaced TV. They probably don't even know what radio is. Music comes from MP3s and CD players. Books are PDF files.
Bugs Bunny has nothing on Neopets.com
Yugi and Pokemon... and while the cartoons exist as 30 min daily ads for the card games it seams more and more kids only watch them becouse of the card games.
Now a days the Yugi and Pokemon video games are ads for the TV shows and card games.
Willy Wonka candys advertises by having a website filled with games and runs ads on Neopets.com.
It's not just the kids. Thow they lead the way.
CNN Headline News already knows the future. CNN.com. FoxNews has it's website. and when NBC looks for a partnership it looks to Microsoft.
People complain less about the crap on TV... Not becouse there is less crap. All the good shows are going away or going to hell leaving nothing but crap. But it's the crap that people who won't go online like.
It's the digital age. I just gave a 7 year old a Knoppix CD and then the topic of upgrading ram came up... (The Bosses son.. His computer need more memory)
The next generation understands Rinkworks Computer Stupidities.
For them Google is the place to look up information not the public libary.
The idea of sitting around watching TV for 30 minuts seams.. alien.
My boss dosen't worry about her kids watching to much TV. She worrys about them playing to many video games.
I don't actually exist.
In the 1980s, after the FCC officially deregulated most rules surrounding programming and advertising, the animation and toy businesses were able to partner up and create a new tradition of half-hour commercials to sell toys. He-Man kicked it off, followed by G.I. Joe and Transformers, MASK, Sectaurs, the list goes on. Before long, this became such a common and profitable practice that it was nearly impossible to get a show on the air that wasn't some sort of a tie-in.
Then along came the NES, which truly revolutionized the home gaming phenomenon and became as commonplace as toasters in many households. Kids started spending more and more time with their came consoles and less with their toys, and this phenomenon continues to the present day, when video games continue to take up a larger and larger portion of floor space at toy stores every year.
It's especially pronounced in Japan, where, through the 60s, 70s and 80s there were jillions of live action and cartoon shows produced to serve as vehicles for promoting superhero, monster, and robot toys. Nowadays, there are only a few core brands left that have any kind of sustainability, with very few newcomers to the fold. Some companies like Takara have tried crossover products like Web Diver Gradion, but they haven't caught on as much as they'd like. Kids there are just having more fun with their Playstations and Game Boys.
Of course, there is the occasional Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh that achieve breakthrough success, but one could argue that these are pretty heavily game-based properties as opposed to toy-based.
I remember the heyday of cartoons, when everything was a clearly delineated, toy tie-in. Well, okay, other than Looney Tunes, which was simply fantastic.
Cartoons were clearly tied to gender. There were boy cartoons (GI Joe, Transformers, Voltron, M.A.S.K., that one with the light gun plane where you shot at the screen, and so forth), and girl cartoons (Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, etc.). These were genuine, good quality shows that were obvious toy tie-ins, but kids loved them. See, toys provide something tangible, and the easiest way to generate toys is to not have character development. If I want to add a character to Spongebob, I have to have a meaningful purpose for that character, because said cartoon is primarily narrative and dialogue-driven. Transformers is also arguably narrative-driven, although the narrative consists primarily of Autobots vs. decepticons, so adding a flying plane or a dinosaur is trivial.
It seems a bit rambling, but I'm bringing it together here. I can remember watching kids play Power Rangers at the park. Power Rangers is easy to play. You choose your ranger, you go off and battle "evil". How the hell do a bunch of kids play Spongebob? What, you pretend to be some crab and exchange half-wit banter while simultaneously apppealing to an older demographic?
Basically, it's a lack of conflict. Every solid cartoon show revolved around the simplest of ideas, good vs. evil. It might've been that the evil was Decepticons, or the wicked Voltron queen, or Cobra, or that Rainbrow Brite villain who was only drawn in shades of gray. A dialogue-driven children's show is going to have to be pretty damned well-written to appeal to kids, and hiring good writers costs good money. Cartoons exist primarily because they're cheap to produce, so any gain from choosing the medium is eliminated when you have to gety talented writers on board. Maybe it's a reflection of our values as a society (or more particularyl, young parents' values) , or maybe it's Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, as other posts have mentioned, but something's just missing there.
Alternately, it could simply be that the plethora of cable networks broadcasting cartoons has taken the profitability away from the format.
I remember anxiously awaiting the debut of "Hammerman", MC Hammer's animated masterpiece. I remember "The Ghostbusters", and "The Real Ghostbusters". I remember "Garfield & Friends", and I remember that duck who wore the innertube and the duck head on the inner tube always did exactly what the duck's head did. That was clever. I remember never getting up early enough to see "The Snorkles". I remember that one cartoon with Butter Bear. I remember the crazy crap they had on nickelodeon on saturday mornings too, "The Sun Beneathe The Sea" or something, that one with the Prince who catches comets in a net and flies from planet to planet and talks to the bitchy flower, and that one about the kid and the dog. I sadly remember "Bill & Ted's Excellent Cartoon", and the Pac-Man cartoon, and I vaguely recall a cartoon about the video game Pitfall. While we're talking video games.. I also vagely recall a Q-Bert cartoon. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, of course, and WWF Superstars. I particularly remember the episode where Andre the Giant (may he rest in peace) was going on a date, and he had to wear rubber tires as shoes. And I'm not too old to admit that I watched "Bill Nye the Science Guy" and "Beakman's World", neither of them hold a candle to Mr. Wizard though. Even though you had to get up at 4am to see Mr. Wizard, it was always worth it. The Chuck Jones genius of "The Bugs & Daffy Show" was always pleasant. I think "Ducktales" was an afternoon show, but I know "Tail Spin" was a saturday morning show. So was "Denver, The Last Dinosaur", and "Dennis The Mennace". "Dennis the Mennace" is hilarious to watch now as an adult. Dennis wasn't a mennace at all, Mr. Wilson is just an asshole. And do you recall that TMNT spin-off with the frogs? WTF was that? I think all Hanna-Barbera had to offer on Saturday mornings during my youth was "The Grape Ape", "Manilla Gorilla", and "The Flintstones Kids".
Perhaps I watched a little too much TV as a kid. Like Pavlov's dog, I flip the TV off every time I see "Meet The Press" cause that means the cartoons are over.
It had nothing to do with cartoon quality, changing demographics or the alignment of Jupiter and Mars. The FCC used to require a minimum number of hours of children's programming. They stopped requiring it. Hooray for deregulation, sure glad I can watch golf and infomercials on Saturday morning now. I'm not sure which is more boring, btw.
What was the mystery again?
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
There is one thing that the article is not completely clear on, and that is whether or not there is a definite drop in the number of children watching cartoons at all. In other words, is it just that they can now watch cartoons anytime they want, or are they also watching less?
From other trends I have seen, it could very well be that the current generation of children are too busy doing other things to look at TV (something that the article does mention), at least not as extensively as the generation before them. But if this is true, think of this: Today's cartoon-watchers are tomorrow's primetime TV watchers. If they're not watching TV much now, will they suddenly turn around and start watching it when they get older? I think not.
So we could be seeing the beginning of the end of the era of television itself. It will be a very slow death, but it may come nevertheless. Even now primetime TV is starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for fresh ideas. I doubt the next generation of potential TV watchers will be satisfied with this.
This makes me think of a throwaway line of dialogue from an episode of the original Star Trek. I forget the name of the episode (it was the one where they get zapped back in time to 20th century Earth and accidentally beam the Air Force pilot on board). At one point Spock said something like (paraphrased) "Television died out as an entertainment medium sometime in the 21st century."
Life imitating art, perhaps?
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
I'm surprised this thread is not modded higher - until very recently, I got up ay 7 am (or before!) on Saturdays to whatch cartoons with my kid, who is now 7. I know a hell of a lot of people don't dig it, for the both oft-maligned and praised factor in this thread - toy tie-ins - but we watched the freaking hell out of the first three seasons of Digimon. Totally kickass. Then you had in the last couple years these crazy cartoons like Fighting Foodons - not only was that hella f***ed up but also pretty damn funny.
Now, Digimon got re-angled at a younger audience, but the risky cartoons (not risqué, risky - too weird to get popular) have all been cancelled and there's just nothing there. Makes me really sad - I LOVE saturday morning for cartoons, just any cartoons. Spoon up some sugar bombs with the kid before mom wakes up - hell, maybe even wake and bake before I wake the boy up - and watch the hell out of four hours of cartoons.
Also, I agree with other posters that toy tie-ins are totally important! Yes, it's a scam to take your money as a parent, but it rocks to connect with both the cartoon and the kids by having the digivices, the action figures, etc. - it gives you a whole mythology to explore early creativity, etc. I guess in the new family-values world that mythology is provided by religion, but not in my house, bub.
F*** sunday and church, my son and I want cartoons back on track.
The author missed one part about why children spend less time watching cartoons... Children today are being hurried through childhood, rushed into taking on adult tasks at a very early age.
Anxious parents overload their children, pushing them too hard, too soon. It is becoming increasingly common for parents to enroll their young children in after-school activities (sports, music, ballet). Here is an interesting quote from Time magazine: "Kids who once had childhoods now have curriculums; kids who ought to move with lunatic energy of youth now move with the high purpose of the worker bee."
I do not know what the author considers to be quality time, but taking kids to ballet school and driving together in the car is definitely not quality time.
I am 36, which means I remember Cartoons starting when I was 5 in 1971, up to when I left home at 19 and no longer had younger brothers and sisters watching them.
No one hear has mentioned Boomerang, the Cartoon Network spin-off which showcases Hanna-Barbara cartoons from 1958 to 1985.
Yes, now seen as an adult, some of the shows I thought were cool, are, well, junk. However, some things still hold up well. Like Johnny Quest
Also no one has mentioned such Jay Ward classics as Rocky and Bullwinkle. A show written for kids, with dialog for the adults and humor that cut to the heart of the cold war.
I remember back in the 70's when the networks would have a Friday night where they would show off their new Saturday morning linuep. One of the things we would look forward to after school started up again in September is seeing what new cartoons would be on.
Inspector Gadget and Robotech were worth watching. At 18, I grew tired of the He-Man,GI Joe tie-ins. They had enough bullets flying around to call it world war 3, but no one ever dies, They can't die, K-Mart had 100 units of each figure on the shelf, killing of the character would have been bad business.
Yes, the quality of the animation is terrible now days. There are a few modern gems. I find Ren and Stimpy funny and pretty incorrect.
I would have to agree that most cartoons are not very good, because they are not witty and there is no adult humor in them, or that they are so PC. Let's dialog about our feelings. The Simpsons has not been on so long because they dialog about their feelings, it's because they take no prisoners.
It's pretty sad realy, even back in the 70's most of the great cartoons had been made in the 60's.
vi +
I'm from India. Sunday mornings used to be kids time on television cos' many schools worked on Saturdays. Usually consisted of Disney cartoons (dubbed into Hindi) and mythological serials. (Where kids programs in the US show technologically advanced robots and gadgets, kids programs in India had all powerful gods and godessess with tantrically charged bows and arrows fighting against demons and beasts. :-))
Funny how everyone perceives the 'heyday of cartoons' simply as the time they themselves watched cartoons as a kid, with everything after that being crap. Different generations - different 'heydays'.
JP
I noticed the downturn of Saturday morning even as I was growing up. When I was young it was great and as I got older it got worse and worse. For a while I thought it was me but then I noticed I still liked cartoons. With the coming of Cartoon Network and similar channels I knew that it definately wasn't be that'd changed. The cartoons they push at kids these days just tend to suck - especially the Saturday morning crap. Worst they've replaced most these time slots with news and religious shows. Sure the kids go to other channels and time slots to find cartoons but that is only because the Saturday morning as we know it has been flushed completely down the toilet.
I think network tv is missing the real market for Saturday morning cartoons - adults that grew up with it. I think a lot of us would tune in (with our own kids) to watch good cartoons. We could be spending a couple hours every Saturday morning with our kids just having a laugh. Some good cartoons like Looney Tunes. Toward the middle of the day fade the programming from animation into more grow up stuff. Bill Nye the Science Guy, Junkyard Wars, etc.. sort of educational things children and parents might watch together.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Cartoons during the 80s anyway (when I was watching them) typically had very morally absolutist/dualistic themes permeating their storylines. You had a group that was identified as "good," another group that was identified as "bad," and the line between the two was very clearly defined. This of course was before the advent of postmodernism, which includes among other things the concept of moral relativism...ergo, the concept that there's no such thing as moral absolutes. The other thing that was different is that back then the entire concept of political correctness didn't exist either. Society now is so inundated with the clamouring cries of this or that minority group that it's virtually impossible to conceive of a storyline for just about anything without the risk of offending *someone*. I'm not sure why it's happened in the last 20 years, but before about 1990, people used to be nowhere near as easily offended as they are now. There's talk of releasing watered down versions of The Lord of The Rings, the Bible, and pretty much everything in between in order to make them bland and as inoffensive as possible.
The bottom line is that if you can't say something without having to worry that it's going to bring all sorts of crap down on your head because of possibly offending the gay movement or some other equally paranoid, emotive, and fanatical minority group, you most likely will end up not saying anything at all. To me, this has far more wide-ranging implications also than just the death of cartoons...we're talking about freedom of expression as a whole.
I've always wondered how the "divorce rate" is measured. It always seems strangely high to me because it just doesn't add up anecdotally.
Is it simply a count of divorces per marriages in a particular year? If so, doesn't that discount marriages that last for a long time?
JoAnn